Halo Wars for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

Really great experience, a ton of fun, SUPERB real-time strategy controls for a console.

Graphics are quite good, and the animation on your little army of dudes is just a joy to watch (one of my favorites is the Spartan hi-jacking one of the Covenant vehicles. He actually jumps on the vehicle, pounds the bejeezus out of it, and rips the door open and jumps in. I think I remember him launching the current pilot out, but can't remember now). Outside of 1 or 2 instances of slowdown, it ran really well.

The cutscenes are FANTASTIC. They are not in-game, but they make up for it by making them near-movie-quality. They are so well-produced that I was constantly reminded of Warcraft 3. Also reminiscent of Warcraft 3 is "payoff" nature of the cutscenes, but this time you actually get one movie after every mission, which is excellent. The second-to-last movie in the game with the "boss battle" is worth torrenting it's so good.

I beat the whole campaign in about 12 hours on normal difficulty, so it's nice and short (as most of you know, you can spend 2-3 hours on a single mission with most RTS games). There is co-op through the campaign, but I don't know if you get to see the cutscenes during co-op or not (it would be criminal if you can't).

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but there is team-based play where you can have a 3 vs. 3 match. Seems like it might be fun, and there are several modes available.

I normally don't give a hoot about achievements in a game when reviewing it, but they came up with a very cool idea of giving you a "challenge" during each mission that'll give you five extra GS if you perform this action (e.g. - "Repair power core in less than 4 minutes"). It actually made some of the missions even more fun when they were shorter because I changed how I played them, kinda like a puzzle game. Small thing, but excellent execution.

All in all, highly recommended.

So the Single Player Campaign was quite easy and short. I was pinning my hopes on the multiplayer and figured that this is where Halo Wars would shine. It didn't. The multiplayer came down to 3 ways of winning. Rushing with warthogs, hit and run attacks with firehawks, or an early covenant rush.

That limits you to three types of strategies, with the warthog rush always the winner if done properly, even against a covenant rush. The game is very simply and it was amazing how many people online could not understand the basic rts strategies. One race/leader clearly stands out among the rest and I found myself getting bored using the same winning strategy game after game (warthog rush).

Pros-
1. Easy to pick up
2. Amazing RTS graphics
3. The halo feel in general

Cons-
1. Easy to pick up. On my second online game I found there was little or no room for improvement.
2. 40 population cap (I hate low pop caps)
3. Must build on special locations(usually 2 per person) Not good if you like to mass build and spread out.
4. One clear winning strategy
5. Lack of civilization balance

On a good note- The game is fun for a while and if you are playing with a decent friend, then you can have a really good time. Rent it for a couple of weeks.